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NETworks non-equity presentation of Waitress at the Kimmel Center delivers a production that is full of sweetness, laughs, and lovely music.
There is something so comforting about the American diner. The smell of bacon, the reliably hot coffee, the servers who’s brusk care is well-worn but personal. Likewise, Waitress, feels comforting, and certainly more filling than some other recent movie-to-musical broadway adaptations.
View More Waitress Goes Down Sweet As Pie
What’s onstage in Philadelphia this month?
View More Philadelphia Theater Calendar April 2022
As part of its Transformation Repertory, Quintessence Theatre Company presents one of Shakespeare’s most beguiling plays, The Winter’s Tale. Sometimes classified as a “late romance,” or a “tragi-comedy,” or simply “a problem play,” The Winter’s Tale spans two countries and 16 years.
View More Quintessence Breaking the Cycle with Tragi-Comedy The Winter’s Tale
Shawn W. Smith returns to WAITRESS in the lead role of Earl. Smith joined the national touring cast of WAITRESS in 2019 after playing an ensemble role in the show. The musical is based on the 2007 film of the same name and features music by Sara Bareilles. Smith talks to Phindie about being back in the pie shop.
View More Order Up! Interview with Shawn W. Smith of WAITRESS
Catholic Guilt might sound like a title for a heavy, depressing show, but Kelly McCaughan leads audiences on an adventure that is much more than that. The show is McCaughan’s “playful and poignant” take on her experiences with Catholicism, a mix of stand-up, improv and what they describe as “sinful audience participation”.
View More ‘Catholic Guilt’ Returns for the Fifth Annual Philadelphia Theatre Week
As the world reaches out a hand to help the Ukrainian people amidst the Russian invasion, the local Philadelphia theater community is finding its own ways to contribute. In solidarity with Ukraine, the Wilma Theater presents a special event next week featuring the work of Ukrainian playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit, raising money for those affected by the war.
View More The Wilma Announces A Fundraiser Supporting Ukraine
Two elderly people play cards and talk about their life in Donald L. Coburn’s quietly moving play The Gin Game, winner of the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
View More THE GIN GAME by Donald L. Coburn (1978): Chosen by Committee Episode 52
What a brave return to live theater this production is! Lantern Theater Company gives us old-time drama and powerful theater, full of big ideas and complex language, rather than a bit of fluff to amuse or console us. With a top-notch cast and clever direction by Peter DeLaurier, it’s a heady three hours.
View More Lantern Theater’s Brave Return to Stage: A Man For All Seasons
Walking into the Forrest Theatre, patrons are assaulted by the glaringly-bright light of the stage. This production of Oklahoma!, the lights seem to say, will hide nothing. In many ways, Daniel Fish’s revival lives up to this promise.
View More A Powerful Revival: Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma!
In a post-quarantine world, we often don’t know what to expect, and the same is true of Sarah Knittel and Bradley Kristian Wrenn’s upcoming experience/performance titled MAKE A F@CKIN’ SHOW YOU POS. Sarah Knittel, one half of the director/performer duo, received our smoke signals and exited her cave long enough to discuss her work and the show with Phindie.
View More Emerging from the Dark: Sarah Knittel on MAKE A F@CKIN’ SHOW YOU POS
For millennial theater kids, it is hard to overstate the cultural importance of Rent. First produced in 1996, the contemporary retelling of Pucini’s La bohème introduced me and my peers to rock ballads, profanity, drug use, sex, homelessness, and AIDS. Presented in Philly as part of its “25th Anniversary Farewell” tour, this Rent feels adolescent, that is: young, passionate, loud, and slightly dumb.
View More Seasons of RENT: A young cast helps an aging show
The winner of the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Drama gets the Chosen by Committee treatment this week. Michael Cristofer’s The Shadow Box got the nod…
View More The Shadow Box by actor Michael Cristofer (1977): Chosen by Committee Episode 51
Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Marsha Norman’s two-woman play ’night, Mother is a tragedy on an intimate, rather than epic, scale. Taking place over a single night, it looks at a widowed mother and her divorced daughter, who is epileptic, depressed, and at the end of her rope. Philadelphia audiences can catch Norman’s award-winner from March 4 to March 27, 2022, in a presentation by Isis Productions starring Kirsten Quinn and Renee Richman-Weisband. Phindie spoke to director Neill Hartley about what makes this such a fitting play for our times.
View More Rich and Resonating: Neill Hartley on ’NIGHT, MOTHER from Isis Productions
Here’s an overview of some of the shows coming to the stage in Philadelphia this month.
View More March 2022 Roundup
What’s onstage in Philadelphia this month?
View More Philadelphia Theater Calendar March 2022
If you missed Beautiful: The Carole King Musical during its five year run on Broadway or in its previous two Philadelphia tour appearances…chances are you…
View More BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL (National Tour): 60-second review
Starring in the revival of OKLAHOMA!, actor Mitch Tebo brings his 40 years of theater experience to the stage as Andrew Carnes. Tebo originally played…
View More Oh, What a Beautiful Role: Mitch Tebo in OKLAHOMA!
Humble Materials, a new theater company in residence at Philly PACK, will produce an original adaptation of MEDEA, opening February 25. “Medea is one of…
View More Theater’s Fiercest Female: New company launches with MEDEA
Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown is a blend of retold Greek myths, written in the rich folk-musical language of the American south, focusing on the stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Hades and Persephone.
View More HADESTOWN (National Tour) at the Kimmel Center
One singular sensation!
View More A Chorus Line (1976): Chosen by Committee Episode 50